76 
THE EAT. 
determination and resolve, from feelings of the most patri- 
otic and philanthropic character, to grapple with the evi], 
and make it manifest to the world by facts of the most 
stubborn and unflinching verity. 
As a gentleman was walking one evening late, two or 
three hundred yards from his own home, he heard a great 
noise in a hen-roost. A poor fowl was squealing in great 
distress ; and he distinctly heard the gibbering and half- 
squeaking noise of rats. Having been a great siifierer by 
them himself, he soon concluded what was the matter. On 
the following morning he told his neighbour of the noise he 
had heard over night in his hen-roost: "Ah," he said, "one 
of our old hens was killed last night, and gnawed all to 
pieces." 
A few years back I took a trip to Hanwell, for the purpose 
of gathering some practical information from a celebrated 
ratcatcher, of the same place. Among other information, 
he told me of a gentleman, residing at Greenford, who sent 
for him the week before, after having had two fine hens 
killed by rats while sitting, the one upon fifteen eggs, and 
the other upon eighteen. I mention the number of eggs, 
in order to show the large size of the hens. They were 
gnawed all to pieces, and every one of the eggs taken away. 
The ratcatcher, by dint of ferrets and traps, succeeded in 
catching eighteen of the delinquents, for which the gentle- 
man paid him most liberally. 
A gentleman living at Hanwell, also sent for him the same 
week, after having had two full-grown ducks killed by the 
rats. Here there was ocular demonstration of the fact ; for 
the gardener, early in the morning, saw two large rats in the 
act of dragging one of the ducks away, when he pursued 
them, and succeeded in getting it from them. The duck 
was then warm ; but the head was gnawed all to pieces. 
In the " Gardeners' Chronicle," a gentleman of Hamp- 
shire writes to state that in his district the neighbours 
have of late lost many hundred heads of poultry by rats. 
They will come in the night, and take the chickens from 
under their mother's wings. Some of them have lost as 
many as ten in a night. Nor are their depredations carried 
on in the night only ; for they will wait and rush out at the 
chickens in the daytime, and carry them into their holes. 
